I’m looking to replace blood bank refrigerators, freezers and shock freezers.  I’ve reviewed manufacturers and products via the internet, as well as, read past blogs.  It appears that the leading manufacturers are Helmer, Follett and Thermo Scientific.  Any information that you can provide on quality, reliability, service costs, total cost of ownership, temperature distribution, temperature recording and how long products will maintain the required temperature during a power outage would be helpful.  I may take this opportunity to move away from chart recorder to an electronic monitoring system.  Does anyone have any experience with them?  Thank you in advance for any information you can provide. 

I would stay away from Thermo Scientific  aka Jewett.  I prefer Helmer's magnetic door closure.

I have 2 Helmer refrigerators that have been in service for quite a few years with minimal problems. I would have purchased an ultra-low from them, but they weren't yet available when I needed to replace my old one. I would definitely check out their freezers as well. I find their customer service to be excellent.

I would recommend Helmer as well.  They also have an option for a monitoring system to help you get away from the paper charts.

 

It's Helmer for us.

Helmer here too

 

 

I'm a Helmer girl all the way.  Love them.

Thank you everyone for the information provided.  In previous posts I saw many others preferred Helmer.  Besides magnetic door closure and excellent customer service what differentiates them – reliability, quiet, durability, cost, less energy consumption, easy to service, don’t require much service, temperature distribution, anything else?  Thank you again for your information.

18 hours ago, emmam said:

Thank you everyone for the information provided.  In previous posts I saw many others preferred Helmer.  Besides magnetic door closure and excellent customer service what differentiates them – reliability, quiet, durability, cost, less energy consumption, easy to service, don’t require much service, temperature distribution, anything else?  Thank you again for your information.

 

Made in the USA, good tech support, electronic probe alarm activation, easy to obtain parts...just a good company to work with.

my oldest freezer is 2007 so I will tell you in another 20 yrs regarding durability...

I have some old refrigerators which are >30 yrs and still working fine.

My oldest Helmer refrigerator was purchased in 2002. We have replaced a unit that starts the compressor, we have replaced the control center/monitoring module - otherwise no problems. My other fridge is a few years newer and we've replaced the probe that controls the temp. The platelet incubator is from the late 90's and still maintains temps very reliably. So I guess I would say they are durable. They are reasonably quiet. The monitoring system is easy to use. If you need help with something, their customer service people will connect you directly to an engineer to talk you through the problem, so no time wasting messing around with options that may or may not work from someone who doesn't really know whats what. Didn't take long to get parts when we needed them and someone local was able to install the parts. Manuals are clear. Pricing was competitive. Except for the beer fridge my reagents are in, we're Helmer for everything.